Rock of ages: 40,000 year-old musical instruments the world’s oldest

The oldest musical instruments in the world have been found in Germany.

Oxford University in the UK has announced that researchers from that school and Germany's University of Tübingen have determined the age on the world's oldest musical instruments: a collection of flutes, made of mammoth ivory and bird bones. Other bones found at the same level of excavation have been radiocarbon dated as 40,000 years old.

The site at Geißenklösterle Cave in the Swabian Jura area in southern Germany is "widely believed to have been occupied by some of first modern humans to arrive in Europe." So from the very beginning, it seems, we were obliged by something in our natures to get down on it.

The process of dating the instruments was outlined in a paper for the Journal of Human Evolution. The Oxford team, led by lead author Professor Tom Higham, used "improved ultrafiltration method designed to remove contamination from the collagen preserved in the bones."

The dating has established that the Aurignacian, a "culture linked with early modern humans and dating to the Upper Paleolithic period," began 2,000 to 3,000 years earlier than originally thought, 42,000 and 43,000 years ago. The Geißenklösterle Cave site predates are the "earliest for the Aurignacian and predate equivalent sites from Italy, France, England and other regions."

"Geißenklösterle is one of several caves in the region that has produced important examples of personal ornaments, figurative art, mythical imagery and musical instruments," said excavator Dr. Nick Conard of the University of Tübingen.

One of the important issues surrounding this new dating is that it proves humans were in the Danube valley prior to a great climactic shift that lowered the temperatures significantly.

"The question," said Higham, "is what effect this downturn might have had on the people in Europe at the time."

Perhaps the creation of instrumental music was one of those effects. Perhaps the ungovernable shift inspired a ritual need that musical instruments satisfied.

Fascinating. And yet another reason to pine for the invention of time travel, since that's the only way we'll ever have the magical experience of hearing what kind of music these instruments produced 42,000 years ago.

Fascinating. And yet another reason to pine for the invention of time travel, since that's the only way we'll ever have the magical experience of hearing what kind of music these instruments produced 42,000 years ago.

I, too, wish there were some way we could hear what kind of music they played. How sophisticated was it? Were there accompanying instruments (drums would be an obvious choice)? A truly magical experience it would be to find out.

Fascinating. And yet another reason to pine for the invention of time travel, since that's the only way we'll ever have the magical experience of hearing what kind of music these instruments produced 42,000 years ago.

That's how this whole thing got started.

Someone discovered / inventd time travel to do that very thing. Got stuck in the past - had a background in flute making. Made some flutes to pass the time - because they didn't have the Internet yet. Died. And 43 Thousand years alter we found the flutes. Now we just need to find the nearby DeLorean.

Quote:

"The question," said Higham, "is what effect this downturn might have had on the people in Europe at the time."

Perhaps the creation of instrumental music was one of those effects. Perhaps the ungovernable shift inspired a ritual need that musical instruments satisfied.

Can't wait to see what archeologist say about our culture 1000 or 40 thousand years from now.

"They used to use fossil fuels for their power needs. But they learned the supply was running low - so they made 'electronic synthesizers' to play out their angst over the change - but then realized they needed fossil fuels to both power and make the electronic synthesizers (made of plastic) - so they resorted to "wood" instruments (ya know - until the trees were all gone) and made pianos and guitars and something called a wooden roller coaster to mentally deal with the loss of the plastic for the synthesizers.

LMAO. Bad speculation on the part of the historians to pander as a "scientific" theroy on why early humans made flutes.

How do these geniuses know that it wasn't to mimick bird songs - or hell - somehow a few of them may have heard whales underwater and were trying to recreate that experience. It could have been the wind blowing through trees or through a cave that they were trying to mimick.

But seriously - how cool would it be to be known for being the person that invented the concept of "song" itself ? There's a Copyright claim for ya.

Fascinating. And yet another reason to pine for the invention of time travel, since that's the only way we'll ever have the magical experience of hearing what kind of music these instruments produced 42,000 years ago.

That's how this whole thing got started.

Someone discovered / inventd time travel to do that very thing. Got stuck in the past - had a background in flute making. Made some flutes to pass the time - because they didn't have the Internet yet. Died. And 43 Thousand years alter we found the flutes. Now we just need to find the nearby DeLorean.

Quote:

"The question," said Higham, "is what effect this downturn might have had on the people in Europe at the time."

Perhaps the creation of instrumental music was one of those effects. Perhaps the ungovernable shift inspired a ritual need that musical instruments satisfied.

Can't wait to see what archeologist say about our culture 1000 or 40 thousand years from now.

"They used to use fossil fuels for their power needs. But they learned the supply was running low - so they made 'electronic synthesizers' to play out their angst over the change - but then realized they needed fossil fuels to both power and make the electronic synthesizers (made of plastic) - so they resorted to "wood" instruments (ya know - until the trees were all gone) and made pianos and guitars and something called a wooden roller coaster to mentally deal with the loss of the plastic for the synthesizers.

LMAO. Bad speculation on the part of the historians to pander as a "scientific" theroy on why early humans made flutes.

How do these geniuses know that it wasn't to mimick bird songs - or hell - somehow a few of them may have heard whales underwater and were trying to recreate that experience. It could have been the wind blowing through trees or through a cave that they were trying to mimick.

But seriously - how cool would it be to be known for being the person that invented the concept of "song" itself ? There's a Copyright claim for ya.

How do they know these are musical instruments?Dog whistle, warning device, communication device?

They don't know exactly. The article doesn't go into depth here, but an earlier article did (I think it was here on Ars). The flutes possess some characteristics of modern flutes (I think they made copies and actually played them, it worked). The holes are spaced to make a harmonic tone. Actually, the tones were pretty close to modern day flutes. So the sounds were definitely fine tuned, and any kind of harmonic sound implies music. Also, it wouldn't make a very good whistle if harmonic (if you want to be heard, use something disturbing, anharmonic).Communication is possible, but it's only a short step from communication to music.

I'd like to add, there were actually three flutes found in that one cave, of which only one is in one piece (made of bird bones). There was another flute and more fragments in a cave close by, Hohen Fels, which is probably of the same period, although, as I understand, was not dated in this article.

Most of the flutes were made from hollow bird bones (actually swan. So, if you want to make a nice flute, kill a swan). Only one of the flutes was made from mammoth tusk. And it actually was quite sophisticated. Mammoth tusk is not hollow, so what they did was carve out two flute halves and glue them together to make one. The mammoth flute did not survive the ages in one piece, the first piece was actually found at the same site in 1988, but only identified as such, when the rest was found and the complete bird flute gave a hint what it was. I'm not sure if the picture above is really the mammoth tusk flute, as this was found in fragments. But perhaps they reassembled it.

The dating has established that the Aurignacian, a "culture linked with early modern humans and dating to the Upper Paleolithic period," began 2,000 to 3,000 years earlier than originally thought, 42,000 and 43,000 years ago. The Geißenklösterle Cave site predates are the "earliest for the Aurignacian and predate equivalent sites from Italy, France, England and other regions."

It's not terribly surprising to find these early "modern human" Aurignacians, and so far afield in the heart of Europe. The essential doctrine of the Multiregionalists--that humans have remained a single species with some small but significant level of contact and gene flow across disparate geographic regions for hundreds of thousands of years--keeps looking more likely all the time.

It's interesting to ponder what life would have been like for these early people, and how much contact they likely had with their Neandertal neighbors. The up to 4% Neandertal nuclear DNA carried by contemporary humans may not seem like much--until we reflect that it's about the same amount we'd share with our grandfather's grandfather, or with a second-cousin.

I think these were mammoth whistles. Back in caveman days, before that had HOAs, mammoths shitting in the neighbors' rock gardens was a pretty big deal. It helps to be able to call your mammoth back home and avoid the kinds of confrontations that result in bludgeoning the offender with rocks and the acquisition of the offenders women by the offended party.

Curt Hopkins / Curt writes for Ars Technica about the intersection of culture and technology, including the democratization of information, spaceships, robots, the theatre, archaeology, achives and free speech.